Carry it in My Heart

I went to the cardiologist recently to have my heart checked.

“Perfect picture of health” he stated.

I am simultaneously relieved and not surprised.

My adult children waiting in in the lobby don’t have a care in the world and the receptionist mentions how much the staff enjoys their laughter. It is my turn to wait not as joyously. My son & daughter are checked. We are all fine.

But I feel the doctor has missed something. Something important…

That my heart aches beyond what I feel I can bear.

How can he not see that?

Can you not give me a pill to fix this?

This pain inside is not really mine to have either. So many in my family have better reasons to be sad.

A mother was lost.

A daughter is no longer there to love.

A husband cannot hug his wife one more time.

Who am I to carry this pain in my broken heart?

Michelle, my sister, passed away two months ago without any warning. After training for her umpteenth marathon she fainted and could not be revived. I am changed forever. Best friends for our formative years of life, she was the one person I could rely on to understand me completely.

I was there to watch her running shoes placed on the casket before it was lowered into the ground.

I watched 750 or so people fill a church to honor her life and gave the eulogy.

I look into her daughter’s eyes and see a pain so vast it cannot be described. My heart fills with a mother’s love that even if I give it all will never be enough because I am not her.

Yet, I still cannot believe she is not here.  I am left to wonder how do I fix this? How can I be better? NOW!

But it is not easily fixed in this world of instant, well, everything!

However, as I sat and cried incoherently for an hour on a pastor & friend’s couch, she told me wisely not to put this in a box. Try to resist the urge to say it happened for this reason or for that purpose.

I have resisted that urge to make it all okay and you know what I have seen?

The start of healing through His grace:

~A father walk into a very girly department store all by himself as an act of love to give Christmas PJs to his daughters as his wife did for 15 years before - allowing that very act to inspire us all.

~A mother cry out to God in anger that her daughter is gone knowing He would still love her even if she gives up her crutch of control and trying to fix everyone.

~Another father reaching out to his other daughter to give her a hug a real hug that he has not given in all of her (my) life!

~Two daughters standing side by side before hundreds of people to read words of love to their mother. Brave and fragile moving towards a life they did not ask for but believing He will sustain them..

~I have seen my sister through the words and actions of her friends allowing me a new glimpse into her life and a fresh start to write the words of my own eulogy full of less grandiosity and selfishness.

~Other people who have walked this same road of loss sharing their kind words even though it rips their own wound wide open again.

Nothing is going to be the same again as much as I would like it to be. My heart is going to wear this scar always. One that a doctor will not see. But not left unseen by the one who created us. So He is helping me to bear this scar to carry my broken heart in his hands to continue.

I am sure more will be revealed as time moves on but in the words of E.E. Cummings, i carry your heart with me, i carry it in my heart. Michelle is in my heart being carried by God's heart.